The State Legislature's top fiscal analyst says Governor Schwarzenegger's revised budget is sensible in light of the state's ongoing budget shortfall.

Non-partisan Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill told reporters that the governor’s decision to use four billion dollars in new revenue to reduce debt and for one-time-only expenditures still does not eliminate the state’s ongoing structural deficit.

"Doing everything that the Governor has asked the legislature to do would still leave us with a five billion dollar operating shortfall in ’06-’07."

Outside the Capitol building education leaders from across the state rallied to demand that the governor increase school spending by another two billion dollars. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said it could be done if Schwarzenegger followed the lead of his Republican predecessors.

"The governor could clearly fund public education if he simply restored the upper tax brackets that were in place under Governor Wilson, that Governor Reagan initially put in."

O’Connell said California now ranks eighth from the bottom in per pupil school spending.